


Panda Biscuits

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Anger, Angst, Drabble, Family Drama, Family Issues, Fluff, Friendship, High School, M/M, Raijin Days, Teen Angst, Temper Tantrums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 20:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15804471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: "Something awful happens. Not as awful as finally, actually killing someone, but almost as bad."





	Panda Biscuits

**Author's Note:**

> When you can't think of an appropriate title...

Something awful happens. Not as bad as finally, actually killing someone, but almost as bad. Izaya sees Shizuo crying. It happens after school, outside the supermarket where Shizuo buys himself a treat every day to cheer himself up. He usually takes his treat to the second floor of the mall, were most of the stores are run down or closed, where he can eat by the window in peace. 

He leaves his panda biscuits untouched. He sits with his face to the window, focussing on not letting his shoulders judder.

He smells the flea before he sees him. He’d know that fucking cologne anywhere. He waits and prays, hoping Izaya is just passing through and won’t notice him. But no, the scent gets stronger until it is right over his shoulder. 

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya sings.

Shizuo lets out the breath he’d been holding. It is not a steady sound.

Izaya seems to falter behind him.

“Are you - crying?”

Shizuo squeezes his eyes shut and prays for the ground to swallow him up. Izaya puts a hand on his shoulder. Things get blurry from there. He pushes Izaya away, he knows that much. Pushes him hard. Then his vision clears, and the window is broken before his shaking hands. He looks down. Izaya is lying in the broken glass, surrounded by a circle of people who stare up at Shizuo in horror. It’s like a nightmare. 

Izaya moves then. He sits up and puts a bloody hand to an equally bloody forehead. He looks up and meets Shizuo’s eye. Shizuo snaps out of it and runs.

-

His father is waiting for him when he gets home. News travels fast in this neighbourhood.

“What the hell were you doing?” His father says. “You could have killed him.”

Shizuo bows his head, feeling more of a monster than ever. He can feel Kasuka's curious eyes from the hallway.

His father shakes his head.

“If that boy hadn’t threatened you, I’d be much harder on you.”

Shizuo lifts his head.  _ Huh? _

“Izaya had the decency to admit that he was winding you up, and that he pushed you harder than usual.” His father pauses. “And I know things haven’t been easy at the moment.”

Shizuo is too numb to speak. He’s sent to his room, were he lies on his bed to think. Why would Izaya do that? He’d never protected Shizuo before. Shizuo thinks of Izaya’s hand on his shoulder, stomach churning.  _ Why did I do that? Maybe I really am a psychopath. _

He agonises for over an hour before going back to his father, who is frowning at the TV. He catches his mother’s eye in the kitchen, who shaes her head and looks away.

“What is it?” his father says.

Shizuo swallows, and tells him everything. 

His father stares at him in disbelief. He feels blindly for the remote and turns off the set.

“You were crying?” he repeats, softening.

His father looks terribly sad all of a sudden.

“I’m going to phone the Oriharas,” he says. “They sounded like they were going to be quite hard on him.”

Shizuo bows his head and says nothing. He lets his father pass into the other room to make the call. He hears him speaking to his mother afterwards, though he can’t hear what they’re saying. 

That night’s family dinner, oddly enough, is one of their most pleasant in a long time. 

“Is Izaya OK?” Shizuo asks his father quietly, when they’re alone.

“Broken arm. Clean break,” his father adds quickly, seeing Shizuo's face. “It’ll heal with no complications, and his clothes protected him from most of the glass.”

He tries to take some comfort from this.

“I wish I wasn’t a freak,” he whispers.

“You’re not, of course you’re not,” his father says, hugging him. 

He goes to bed, and listens to his parents whisper through most of the night.

-

He plans to avoid that area of the mall for the rest of his life, but he’s driven by a masochistic urge to go directly to the same spot. He expects people to point and stare at him and he goes up the escalator, but of course they take no notice. The window has already been replaced, the glass cleaned up below, as if nothing had happened. Shizuo had picked up a local paper the day after, scanned it for a demented teenage attack in the mall, but found nothing. It’s as if the whole thing were an unpleasant dream. 

“They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime.”

Shizuo jerks his head so fast it turns. Izaya is grinning at him. His arm is in a maroon, blood-like cast that matches his eyes. Shizuo blinks at it, feeling sick.

“I’m really sorry,” he says. 

“It’s all right.” Izaya inspects the cast himself. “A broken arm doesn’t hurt as much as I expected. Maybe it depends on the break.”

Shizuo nods cautiously.

“You didn’t have to lie for me.”

“And you didn’t have to own up,” he counters. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Were your parents really mad?”

“They were at first. Then they were just baffled. They sort of let the whole thing go.”

“Mine too.”

Apparently taking this as a sign of peace, Izaya ventures forward and reaches into his bag with his good hand.

“You dropped these.” His stupid panda biscuits. “I think they got a bit broken though.”

“You can have them,” Shizuo says. “Seriously.”

“Ah, that’s OK, I don’t have a big sweet tooth. Maybe just one or two”

So they sit by the window, and Shizuo opens the biscuits. Izaya rests his arm on one knee.

“Want to sign it?” Izaya offers, seeing him looking. 

“No thanks.” He’s scared to touch it.

They share the biscuits for a while in companionable silence.

“Are you all right now?” Izaya asks eventually. Shizuo doesn’t have to ask him what he means.

“I think my parents are getting a divorce.”

“Ah,” he says.

“I think it might be because of me.”

“No,” he says, with such conviction it takes Shizuo by surprise. “If they do its because of them, no-one else.” He thinks for a minute. “If its any consolation, mine are almost never around.”

“Why are you being so nice?”

Izaya ignores the question.

“Sign my cast,” he demands instead, holding a marker pen under Shizuo’s nose. 

Shizuo takes it cautiously. 

“Where?” he says, though he has a lot of space; his sisters seem to be the only signatures so far, if the wonky flowers are anything to go by. 

“Anywhere but here,” Izaya says, indicating an area just above his wrist.

Shizuo picks a spot far above it. Izaya has to goad him a few times to make him press hard enough to actually write. He doesn't notice Shizuo is carefully inking the Kanji for flea.

“Bastard,” Izaya says, laughing. He takes the marker from Shizuo when he’s finished and turns the little characters into trees. 

“Thanks, Izaya,” Shizuo says quietly. 

“Sure,” Izaya says without looking up. Shizuo watches him for a moment.

“I come here a lot,” Shizuo ventures. “It’s kind of peaceful. We could hang out here sometime if you want. I’ll buy you something better than biscuits.”

He’s blushing by the time he’s finished speaking, by the time Izaya looks up. 

“Sure,” he says. “Why not.” And he goes back to drawing on himself.

Shizuo feels some of his tension loosen in his chest. They'd never be best buddies, but maybe Izaya was OK in small doses. Small, after-school-with-cookies doses. It was worth a shot.


End file.
